Il Giorno di Ringraziemento
HAPPY TURKEY DAY!! Today will be my first ever Thanksgiving in Italy and I am very excited.
We’ve been experimenting with a few cooking ideas for a quite a while now. First we tried to get Margherita to bake the pumpkin for pumpkin pie, but that did not turn out so well. The pumpkins ended up really dry and crusty like and we were not able to use that for the pie filling.
Then two days ago, we had a cooking trial for pumpkin pie and cornbread. It was amazing! The pumpkin pie was made first. Chelsea mixed and kneaded the dough for the crust while Amanda and Dr. Webb made the pumpkin filling, and Mr. Ed and I were cracking walnuts for the topping. Since I was done cracking walnuts while everyone was still working, I decided to take the left over dough from Chelsea's crust and experiment with it; I mostly just played around with it. I guess I just got really bored after I had finished the walnuts. Messing around with the dough was pretty fun. For some reason, I decide to cut out a shape of a hand and made a turkey from it; I even cut out the beck and the wattle. Dr. Webb and everyone else had liked it so much that the hand turkey ended up being on top of the pie. While I was putting the final touches on my hand turkey, Jenna started the trial of cornbread.
The first to be baked was the pumpkin pie. About twenty minutes after the pie was in the oven, Amanda put my turkey on the pie and I came downstairs to Dr. Webb’s apartment to put arrange the walnuts on the pie. The pumpkin pie cooked for a total of about fifty minutes. After the pumpkin pie was done, it was time to bake the cornbread.
After the entire test trials were done cooking, it was time to rate and critic the food and to perfect it for today. The pumpkin pie was amazing and so was the cornbread! I did not think that either recipe needed adjustments.
Yesterday, we had to make a total of six pumpkin pies for today. We were lucky to have had the crew we had because everyone pitched in and did a part of the pies; it was almost as if it was an assembly line. It was just like the day before at the test trial where Chelsea made the crusts, Amanda and Dr. Webb made the fillings, and I made the toppings. We were pretty efficient. I had fun making all six pies with different designs on them. On two of the pies, I wrote out the word “Happy” and “Day.” On another pie, I made a hand turkey. On another pie, I got creative and made a pilgrim like hat and a really cool looking feather joined by a small heart in the middle. On another pie I was able to do the lattice and for the last one, I decided to braid a few strands of dough and make the crust have a braided texture.
The first three to be baked were the pies that consisted of the word “Happy,” “Day,” and the hand turkey. When I arrange the pumpkin pies correctly, they ‘spell out’ “Happy ‘Turkey’ Day;” our turkey was brown too! As for the pie with the pilgrim hat and the feather, the hat puffed up and it was as if the hat came to live because it gave it a three dimensional figure to it; it was pretty neat.
Well it is now time to go help Jenna with her cornbread; so I will be back to explain more about Il Giorno di Ringraziemente in Italia soon.
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It is now mezzonotte and we just got back from our Thanksgiving dinner at Santa Maria dei Servi. It was a long but very fun night. After Amanda and I helped Jenna with her cornbread, we rushed off to get dress and head down to the Servi to help set up tables and do last minute things. We were in the first shift to be down there and helping. Amanda and I ended up staying from four until a little past six working, more than our shift. I had a lot of fun helping Sergio decorate the place because it seems as if he likes to decorate himself; it was fun and perfect working with him. He let me arrange many things that Alessandra said he preferred to do himself so I felt honored to be able to help in such ways. Later on, I got bored and played with a few crops I saw laying around and made a gorgeous centerpiece with walnuts, leaves, hazel nuts, and persimmons. Alessandra and Sergio liked it so much that they wanted me to make more; so I ended up making eight center piece plates and placing them around the columns.
As soon as that was done I ran back to the palazzo to finish getting ready; which only took my about fifteen more minutes. Then Amanda and I had to escort Samantha down to the Servi because she was sick and we did not want her to be alone in anyway, we made sure that someone was with her at all times; but she seemed to have enjoy herself.
It was seven o’clock and people started filing into the dining hall of the Servi. Around seven thirty was when the rush of people coming in had slowed down. My host family, my service learning teacher, and my friends made it to dinner tonight with an exception of a few people. My host family even brought gifts for Nicole and me; it was a gorgeous necklace for the each of us. It was amazing to see them all spending the day of thanks with Le Ragazze Americane in Italy! Who can actually say that they spent Thanksgiving in Italy with people that care? The Immortal 9 can!
People started to leave around ten o’clock. As more and more people left, we started to clean up; it took us quite a while to wrap everything up and reorder the dining hall.
Well, all I can really say is that, tonight was a very successful night and the first of many American holidays celebrated in Italy! Tonight was amazing and I am thankful for all the people that I have met here and all the memories we share together, there is nothing more that I can ask for, except of course my real family.